The unexpected outcome of a digital nomad experience

Far from being the perfect wanderlust life we see through Instagram photos, my experience traveling the world was filled with ups and downs.

When I look back at it, I see myself blasting through life at 150mph. I was living these micro-lives; bouncing from city to city and meeting people from all over while working full time.

This one-year experience changed me. I didn't find myself nor discover my purpose in life as a result. Instead, I was forced to face so many insecurities and fears I had been dragging for way too long.

To this day I remember every experience and every person I encountered during the trip and how all impacted my personality and my perspective on what's important in life.

You can enjoy meeting new people if you are an introvert

Before venturing myself into the digital nomad life, I was dead set against small-talk-based interactions. I would often cherry-pick the conversations I wanted to be part of, coming across as someone distant at times.

A couple of days into my trip, I started to realize how many interactions that had started as small talk, led to deep, meaningful conversations. Conversations whose content I can relive until this very day.

If there's a way to become a tiny better human being is by removing all preconceptions towards first impressions and new interactions. You'd be amazed at how many thoughts and values you can share with someone from the other side of the world, even if they speak a different language, raised in a contrasting environment and culture.

Dealing with the unpredictable is an art that can be mastered

Even when you're leaving what might seem a normal, uneventful life, you deal with the unexpected: your dog eats your driver's license, your car stops working while driving back home, or your kids decide to use their stationery to decorate the living room.

When you are traveling the world while working full time, there are several ways in which things can go wrong.

I remember one night in San Francisco, I got a notification from the airline saying that my flight for the next morning was canceled and I would lose my connection from LA to Tokyo. As I had booked the tickets separately through a third-party website, the airline refused to put me on the next flight. Long story short: I spent all night on the phone with the third-party provider, without knowing if I would make it to my connection or not. After hours getting nowhere, I decided to go straight to the airport's counter where the airline fixed me into the next flight, making it just in time for my connection.

I still freak out when my dog eats my socks, but when I go back to the experiences I had while traveling, the unexpected seems like a walk in the park.

Kindness can be found in many different forms

The before-trip me would blow a fuse over people pushing me on the bus or reckless drivers. I would be part of the imaginary club of complainers, the one you get admitted to when you put a rant over politics and sports coaches.

When in Mexico, I often took a Colectivo from my apartment to downtown; a 20-minute ride on a small van (Colectivo) that fit ~15 people. Being a tall guy I was always accidentally kicking someone's leg or punching someone's back with my elbow. Everyone, no matter the age, reacted with a smile. I was never given a dirty look. On the contrary, people would move around the tiny van for me to travel comfortably.

In Osaka, the owner of the hostel my brother and I were staying at invited us to a tea celebration at her house, and her husband taught us to write our names in Japanese.

Kindness is a universal language and can be found in places and people you'd never imagine.

Work is not everything

My day as a digital nomad was pretty hectic; I would work from 8 am until noon, take a few hours to walk around the city or go to the beach and then come back to work until the evening. Once every two or three evenings, I would have dinner with people I met at the hostel and was getting roughly five hours of sleep. A part of me thought I was unstoppable.

I struggled every day to balance work with everything else, but I also was so tired at times that I would fall asleep in weird places. Like that time my brother and I went to see a movie in Japan; I snore the entire time and only remember waking up at the credits.

Some people depended on me and my work added loads of stress and did not always succeed at dealing with it.

I make conscious now of the fact that work is one of the pieces of my life. It's a really important one, but in terms of priorities, it should never be above my physical or mental health.

Final Thought

Undertaking this journey of living a nomadic life for a year made it clear to me how important it is to get yourself into the unknown.

Forcing yourself to experiences that don't make you feel necessarily comfortable has an inevitable outcome: growth.